3 Major Relationship Mistakes Women Make After Divorce
When it comes to dating in your new, independent life, you’ll want to steer clear of these relationship mistakes divorced women make time and time again.
If you have divorced or gone through the breakup of a long-term relationship, then you know your fears about moving forward. You worry you’ll attract the same kind of guy*, or that you’ll make those same old mistakes or slip into similar patterns that led to the tragic ending of your marriage. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that love is not for you, or it’s just too much of a struggle to figure out how to start dating in this world of fast dating apps and instant connections.
You are not crazy, too old, or particularly deficient, nor are you undeserving—though these feelings are completely normal after a long-term relationship. If you are getting over your marriage ending, there is a serious stage of recovery here. But beware, it’s a stage that women often ignore or railroad through; if you ignore it, you can expect consequences similar to your last marriage. On the other hand, if you choose to do otherwise—that is, you choose to grow and heal:
then invite this stage into your life and with it, its accompanying flood of feelings. These feelings may or may not include … sadness, relief, grief, excitement, regret, fear, guilt, hope, emptiness, empathy, fatigue, self-doubt … or just fill in yours! Inviting in this stage is a choice.
And it’s the strong woman who chooses to invite the stage in, the kind of woman who realizes she’s got work to do on herself before she can show up whole and healed for somebody else.
Taking steps to heal and connect with yourself will also mean unpacking the baggage you were probably carrying to get through the divorce. Now is the time to find that key and unlock Pandora’s U-Haul. Our best advice is to focus on yourself before you look for someone else to fill the void.
But if you’ve been doing that, and you’d also like to have some fun, hey, you are your own boss! As you forge forward, we encourage you, we celebrate you, and we whisper in your ear: don’t set the bar too high. Let go of looking for your “soulmate,” and instead, go on a journey to meet others as you discover you, your most meaningful self.
Whether you’re dating, starting to dip your toes, or you can’t imagine doing it (but at the same time are just a wee bit curious), you should know that chances are you’ll feel the pull of these behaviors we discuss below. And you’ll want to avoid them so they don’t sabotage your prospects for staying true to you and meeting new people, making friends, or finding a lover or a lovely companion.
You might also be interested in … Dating After Divorce in 10 Steps
Here are the 3 major relationship mistakes women make after divorce.
- Your Way or the Highway
You did a lot of compromising in your marriage; you bent and flexed in multidimensional ways, so there may be a part of you now that says you will never compromise yourself again.
This rigidity might show up in your online dating profile when you say “no liars!” “no golfers” or “no lawyers.” When you put those things out to the universe you are revealing more about the baggage that burdens you than you are creating healthy filters. The message repels instead of attracts because it sounds like you’ve not offloaded Pandora’s Emotional Baggage U-Haul at all.
What really happens is that men who have it all together will recognize your baggage immediately. And those who are liars or otherwise will never recognize the negative traits you describe in themselves; so, they’re not avoiding you because of your boundaries, they’re avoiding you because you sound harsh. And no fun.
But what if you get beyond that dating app, and you actually find yourself in a relationship after divorce (it can happen), if you are leading with this story, that you’ve been lied to, or you distrust everything a man says, or you fundamentally loathe a part of them (their joy of playing golf or the way they earn a living) you are not showing up whole for this man. More importantly, you are not showing up whole for yourself. You are still living inside your wound.
The wound is not my fault.
But the healing is my responsibility
~ Marianne Williamson
It’s good to assert your value, to know your boundaries, but all relationships including friendships require an organic flow. If you want to meet someone truly magical it will show up in the dance of how you each give and take. Let go of your hard-edged parameters, and open yourself a bit to the gray zone of discovering each other’s edges and being flexible. Start fresh.
- Talking Endlessly About Your Ex
Nothing is more of a buzzkill than talking on and on about the Old Guy.
The Old Guy is no longer here, have you noticed? Instead, in front of you is someone new, someone who has never heard your story before.
Now that you are starting to take apart your story and look at it from the inside out, how do you want to tell it? Do you even need to tell it? What about being in the moment, present to what is happening around you, what nature is doing, what the light is like, what your little eye spies through Zoom in the background, or what the person you are looking at is wearing? Did you catch a glimpse of a tattoo on his forearm? You never dated a man in your entire life with a tattoo on his forearm. Let your past partner go. Stay open, curious. Start fresh.
Save the venting, the rehashing, the self-justifying, the explaining, the unloading (the most common relationship slips and mistakes women make after divorce) for a safe place where you will not be judged. Instead, consider this an audition for a mysterious new role. By the way, a safe place to unload feelings about your Ex would be with your girlfriends or on your therapist’s office. Only connect with your coach if you want to actually learn from the feelings and take action around them.
- Introducing Your New Beau Too Soon and Moving in Together
Ask yourself, are you happy alone even without a man in your life? If the answer is yes, then you are relationship material. You can seriously consider being available to someone else besides yourself.
If you’ve dated only one person after your marriage, and you’re already moved in together, what are you, seventeen? Did you learn nothing from your past story? We say this in jest, mildly. But we know it’s easy to get sucked into the comfort of filling the void. But did you answer the question? Are you filling the loneliness—or the fear of being alone—with another person?
Because that’s what a lot of men do post-divorce. They meet someone right away and get married. Often, they don’t hit pause; they find someone else and they plug and play. We know that sounds callous, but it’s also utterly understandable, because certainly our society encourages coupledom. Conventional society is comfortable with convention. But for you, you who have jumped out of the box, you must know moving in with your beau right after divorce is denying your most precious time to actually discover yourself?
A lot of women realize, once divorced, they’ve never truly been independent as an adult before. And that when it gets down to it, they don’t really know who their adult selves are.
This is A-Okay with us! Because we know this is where the juice is—and “Who Am I?” is appropriate for this part of your recovery. You aren’t supposed to know who you are right now. That’s the rub, you are supposed to explore.
Unfortunately, for those who partner up right after divorce, what we (often) see happening is that women end up feeling stuck—again—or having not finished the discovery and experiential stage of recovery. They feel tension, a lack of authenticity, because they don’t know what they really want. But looking out the window, they are intrigued by that good-looking neighbor down the street.
Moving in together too soon is especially tough if you have children. No one needs to tell you that your children have been through a lot and you don’t want to introduce more instability, unknowns, or potential loss in their life. You don’t want them to bond with someone you are not sure about. And you know why you are not sure about him? Because you are not sure about yourself.
So slow down on shacking up.
Instead, wallow, and yes, savor this stage you are in. You’ve been through divorce. You never thought you’d be in this place—post-divorce, single—in your life, but here you are, and you’ve survived. Be kind to yourself by being mindful of your commitment to yourself, that you deserve time and space to pick yourself up and look around. You are exploring. There are so many things to uncover and meet anew. New people will be just one of your best surprises. Be conscious, be awake, and take your time.
Whether you are navigating the experience of divorce, or that confusing place of recreating the life you deserve, one thing we see making a significant difference for women is the conscious choice to not do it alone.
Since 2012, smart women around the world have chosen SAS for Women to partner them through the emotional, financial, and oft times complicated experience of divorce and reinvention. SAS offers women six FREE months of email coaching, action plans, checklists and support strategies for you, and your future; all of this sent discreetly to your inbox. Join our tribe and stay connected.
*We support same-sex marriages. For the sake of simplicity in this article, however, we refer to your spouse, as your “husband” or a “he.”
